I expect him about one." She went back to her room, and dozed and woke several times.

One o'clock had been the hour of his return on the last occasion; but it passed now by a long way, and Fitzpiers did not come.

Just before dawn she heard the men stirring in the yard; and the flashes of their lanterns spread every now and then through her window-blind.

She remembered that her father had told her not to be disturbed if she noticed them, as they would be rising early to send off four loads of hurdles to a distant sheep-fair.

Peeping out, she saw them bustling about, the hollow-turner among the rest; he was loading his wares--wooden-bowls, dishes, spigots, spoons, cheese-vats, funnels, and so on--upon one of her father's wagons, who carried them to the fair for him every year out of neighborly kindness.
The scene and the occasion would have enlivened her but that her husband was still absent; though it was now five o'clock.